I spent about two weeks last month in Jackson, Wyoming, gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. It was my first visit to the area, and I really loved it. Jackson is an expensive place if you’re staying in a hotel or trying to buy real estate, but staying in your SUV or van is a great way to see all the area has to offer and not have to shell out too much money. Continue reading A Guide to Jackson, Wyoming, for SUV RVers and Vandwellers
I’m currently partway through a multi-week road trip through Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and beyond. I’ve gone on several trips like this, and each time, I learn something new or come up with a new tip or better way of doing something. About a week ago I came up better way to store a box of tissues: Continue reading I Found a Great Way to Store a Box of Tissues in My SUV
I’d never heard of Fossil Butte National Monument before seeing it on Google Maps while planning a road trip through western Wyoming. It’s located just west of the town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. I decided to drop by on my way from the Uinta Mountains to Jackson. Continue reading Exploring Wyoming’s Fossil Butte National Monument
SUV RVing the book is now available in paperback on Amazon!
Also, I’m leaving today for a month-long SUV trip through northern Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. The main focus of the trip will be hiking and backpacking, and I’ll be in the mountains for days at a time. But I’ll also post here about the campsites and interesting things I find along the way. I’d also like to take some videos of my rig in action, so stay tuned for that.
In chapter 7 of my book, I talk about the simple privacy “tent” that I take showers inside of. It’s made from a tarp, some paracord, and a pole. It looks like this when set up: Continue reading How I Connect Trekking Poles Together to Create a Tarp Pole
I’ve used freecampsites.net a bunch in my travels. It’s nice and simple: you search for a city or town, and it shows you where there are free campsites nearby. Not too long ago (about 4 months ago), the site added a trip planner tool, and it looks great. I only learned about the tool last week, so I figured I’d share it here in case others haven’t found out about it yet. Continue reading The New FreeCampsites.net Trip Planner
For a lot of SUVs, a great sleeping setup is the “table,” where you’ve got a sheet of plywood that is held up off of the floor of the SUV by 2×4 supports at the corners. Your bed and bedding material go on top of the plywood, and your gear goes underneath. It looks something like this: Continue reading A Unique Sleeping Setup in the Back of a Ford Bronco
I just watched this video from Bob at CheapRVLiving.com & Enigmatic Nomadics, and it reminded me of my little cooler that I sometimes use. In the video linked to above, the guy uses 1/2-inch rigid foam insulation from Home Depot. He cut sheets of that stuff to size and put the pieces (along with some spray foam) inside of a plastic bin, and that was his cooler.
I did something similar but different. Continue reading How I Made Ice Last Longer in My Cheap Cooler
About three months ago, I spent two weeks camping in my SUV and hiking around Moab, Utah. I was there doing research for a hiking guidebook for nearby Arches National Park. I love Moab. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. One thing that I was less than enamored with on this recent visit, however, was the weather. I experienced several days of incredibly persistent wind. Normally wind isn’t a problem, but in Moab, that wind carries with it fine particles of sand. I had to sleep with the SUV’s windows at least partly down to get some air circulation, and the result was that by the end of the trip, the entire interior of my SUV was coated in a layer of sand. Small piles of it had even accumulated in some spots on the floor. It was not pretty. Continue reading The 3 Things I Use to Get My SUV’s Interior Sparkling Clean After a Trip
I spent a couple of days this week up in the Uinta Mountains of northeastern Utah on a semi-failed SUV RVing adventure (more on that in an upcoming blog post). It’s one of my favorite places in the country, and I had a great time rock climbing and hiking. After pulling into a trailhead parking lot and getting out of my car, I saw that the RAV4 next to mine had a spare tire bike rack on it. Very cool! Continue reading Seen in the Wild: Spare Tire Bike Rack